Introduction

Plant production is facing unprecedented challenges. In 2050, the human population will exceed nine billion and the demand for agricultural production will increase by 60%. In addition, climate change will limit local plant production, demanding the development of crops with higher tolerance to e.g. heat, drought, and flooding. At the same time, there is a strong need to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture and preserve natural habitats.

The present PhD course will provide an update on the state-of-the-art methods to uncover the genetic basis of agronomic traits and introduce them into new or existing crops using biotechnology. Special focus will be on wild or semi-domesticated crops as well as gene editing systems in plants. The course will include participation in a 1-day international symposium, including a coaching session on poster preparation and delivery. 

Course contents

The course will cover topics such as:

• Genetic resources for crop improvement

• Overview of mapping of agronomic traits

• Omics-based gene discovery

• Transformation of wild and semi-domesticated crops

• Update on the CRISPR-based toolbox for gene editing

• Intellectual property rights

Learning outcomes

After the course, the PhD students will be able to:

• Identify the main challenges faced when working with wild and semi-domesticated crops

• Describe the workflow of biotechnological strategies for crop improvement

• Describe the main challenges associated with plant tissue culture and transformation

• Identify the advantages and disadvantages of different gene editing protocols

• Propose biotechnological improvement strategies for their own projects

Invited international speakers include:

• Dan Voytas, College of Biological Sciences, University of Minnesota, USA

• Caixia Gao, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

• Nils Stein, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) Gatersleben, Germany

• John A. Doebley, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

  The invited international speakers will be joined by a selected group of experts from UCPH and Århus University participating in the NNF-funded NovoCrops centre (www.novocrops.com) or related large initiatives.

   

Course organizers

Rosa López-Marqués (rlo@plen.ku.dk) and Fernando Geu-Flores (feg@plen.ku.dk).

Registration

Please register and sign up for the event via the website https://eventsignup.ku.dk/novocrops2022/conference

If you have any questions regarding to registration, please contact Xu Zhai (zhai@plen.ku.dk)